Hello, I’m beginner in touchdesigner and I’m trying to do very simply DMX lamp control.
I have a “Chromateq CLUB 1024” interface and “Light4me Flat Quad Par 8x15W” lamp. I don’t have even idea how to connect this interface to Touchdesigner
First, I tried to run the “Led player” software to see if I had installed the drivers correctly.
There everything works fine.
So I tried to connect it to Touchdesigner.
Obviously, on interface list there is only Enttec devices, so I picked Art-Net.On the Chromateq website I found information that there are 2 ARTNET Universes outputs
I set the network address to “255.255.255.255” and the local address as the only one on the list.
But it doesn’t work. I don’t have idea what can I do. Do u know is it even possible to connect this interface with Touchdesigner. If answer is “Yes”, please help me how to do that.
welcome to the community!
As you have seen, the only USB based DMX devices we support natively are Enttec made. For using the Art-Net and sACN protocol you would require a ethernet to dmx device such as Enttec’s ODE MK2 or Advatek’s Pixlight boards.
Hey Kubbuk,
I second everything that Markus said, and would like to add a little more.
If you have just purchased the interface and you are keen to get it working with TD, perhaps you could consider returning it and buying a different model. If this is an option I would recommend to buy an Artnec-sACN device like the one that Markus suggested (Enttec’s ODE MK2) or a DMXking eDMX1PRO, or similar.
In my experience controlling lighting with TD, it’s a definitely easier to get a wider range of Artnet-sACN devices to work.
All the Artnet sACN devices I have work perfectly with TD (and with plenty of other softwares as well).
If returning the USB DMX device is not an option, you could consider using a free software like QLC+ (for example) to control your light, and set up TD to send OSC data to QLC+.
This effectively will let you control your light from TD, via QLC+.
This is a workaround, and not exactly ideal or easily scalable, but it could be a good way to start experimenting with TD and with the gear you currently have access to.
In short, don’t give up just yet and post in the forum if you have more questions!
I don’t have budget for new device so information about OSC is absolutely awesome.
But again I have a problem. I tried for few hours to connect 2 programs via OSC.
Unfortunately, QLC+ for some reason doesn’t see my interface.
There is dedicated softwares to my interface. They are “Led Player”, “Pixxem” and “Pro DMX”.
They have options to remote by smartphone. I suppose if they have this option then you can connect via the OSC operator. Tell me if I’m wrong .Actually, I have no idea how to interpret data from touchdesigner to other software. Have you any idea?
ok, there’s a lot going on here! let’s move step by step.
Based on your posts it seems that you can control the light if you use one of the software they provide ("Led Player”, “Pixxem” and “Pro DMX”). That’s great as it excludes a lot of troubleshooting in that direction.
The next step would be to find which of these software is more appropriate for your project, and especially if they are capable to receive OSC.
I am not familiar with that particular interface or with these lighting software, but based on a quick research on their website it looks like their software only receives MIDI to trigger prerecorded scenes, there’s no mention of OSC.
I’d suggest to get in touch with Chromateq, see if they have a tech support number, a forum or similar, and ask them directly what protocols their software can send/receive, and explain to them what you are trying to achieve.
The fact that they have a mobile app does not necessarily mean that the software and the app use OSC to talk to each other. If you want to try investigate in that direction you can try to use a OSC monitor software to check what OSC messages are happening in your network and go from there. (for basic monitoring I have recently been using Hexler’s Protokol ).
Beyond all this, you need to consider that if you want to control a light with TD you need to send all the information that the light expects to receive, in a 0-255 range.
In other words, for example, if you have a RGB led light, its likely that the light expects to receive three information: red, green and blue.
If you want to set the light to be blue, in TD you need to send 3 channels, Red 0, Green 0 and Blue 255.
To understand what information your light expects to receive (its ‘DMX footprint’) you need to check the light specifications on the manufacturer manual or online.
Update after year.
Year ago, I didn’t know what is DMX protocol and how lighting devices works. I’ve done some more complex DMX project now, so I thought I could share this with people who are struggling like me.
Chromateq is a Chinese device that is very popular in Poland. Last time, I didn’t know that DMX devices are not open source, except ENTEC and Art-Net protocol devices. So that is totally normal that DMX signal is sent from Chromateq software and can’t from Touchdesigner.
For some time, I was controling Chromateq software by MIDI (But it will work with any of DMX software, probably). It works quite okay for pixel mapping like LED bars or pars, but it is absolute garbage for any of moving lighting like spots, beams, etc.
The reason for that is MIDI protocol is only 0-127, so if you use it to control 0-255 DMX you will send only odd data. It results that lamps looks like they stuck every frame for a second, and the movement is totally not smooth.
OSC, like FaustoB suggest, maybe will work better, but unfortunate Chromateq software does not support that
Conclusion is to just buy Enttec or Artnet device, as people in this topic said, and don’t waste your time on that weird stuff like me. They are working much, much better.